More particularly, the invention relates to a method for locating a touch (for example of a finger, of a stylus or of another device) on a tactile surface belonging to an object, this method comprising at least the following steps:
(a) a monitoring step in the course of which mechanical waves are caused to propagate in the object from at least one emission point belonging to the object, and said mechanical waves are picked up at at least one reception point belonging to the object so as to obtain at least one picked-up signal,
(b) and a location step in the course of which a touch on said tactile surface is located by analyzing the picked-up signal.
Document FR-A-2 644 309 describes an example of such a method which exhibits in particular the following drawbacks:                it requires complex and expensive equipment, including a large number of transducers,        and it exhibits limited resolution.        
It is also known from document WO 2006/133018 to combine various touch location techniques known in the art, but at the cost of increased complexity.
Also known from documents FR-A-2 841 022 and WO 03/067511 are location techniques which use a passive principle, but it is not possible to detect touches having a very low impact energy with these passive procedures.
The aim of the present invention is in particular to alleviate these drawbacks.